After You
by ScarletInkQuill
Summary: After the dreadful day when Doctor John Watson watched his best friend take his own life, living at Baker Street couldn't be more difficult. But after spending several months without knowing what to do, John decides to follow the steps of his friend in crime solving. The only thing he didn't expect was to get himself in so much trouble.
1. The Aftermath

It was another quiet night in London.

As the city slept peacefully until morning, in a dark alleyway, a dark figure ran past. To any bystander the figure would have been recognized as that of a man. If the bystander happened to be paying attention to the scene, he would have told you that the figure was that of a military man analyzing the way the figure was running. And of course, if that bystander happened to be Sherlock Holmes, he could tell you that the figure that had ran past was that of a man with a history of military service, with nerves of steel and strong moral principles… he would probably tell you as well that the man was a Doctor. If you asked him how he knew all of that just looking at the running figure, Sherlock Holmes would tell you that he didn't know, he saw, but the main reason why Sherlock could have told you all of this, was that he knew the man very well, for he was none other than Doctor John Watson – his flat mate and only friend.

The only problem was that there were no bystanders at all in the dimly lit alleyway as Doctor John Watson ran. But if you happened to live nearby you would surely know that something was wrong in the next morning when you woke up and found the street flooded with police cars. If you happened to live nearby, you wouldn't have heard Dr. Watson ran by, but five minutes later your sleep would be disturbed with the only noise heard in the silence of the night: a shot. And then, you would probably turn around and go back to sleep.


	2. The Idea

_Three months earlier_

Almost two years had passed since Sherlock Holmes had jumped off the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

John Watson sat on an armchair at his apartment at Baker Street. He didn't know why he had returned to the now empty flat, once Mrs. Hudson had boxed everything Sherlock had to donate, at least part of the things, to schools, but his therapist had told him that maybe it would be a good idea to return.

At first John hadn't been able to come back to Baker Street, having stayed some time at the first small hotel he had slept in when he first arrived to London from Afghanistan. He didn't know why he had made up his mind and moved in again to the flat he used to share with his best friend.

He looked around. Everything on the flat reminded him of Sherlock, even if there were few objects laying around and the apartment was now clean and tidy and not messy and full of the stuff Sherlock had. Even so, the furniture, the marks on the table, the wallpaper and most of all, the yellow smiley face drawn on the wall and the bullet holes reminded him of Sherlock.

John sighed and opened the newspaper lying on one of the arms of the armchair. All the news stories seemed to be irrelevant now. When John first arrived to London he was expecting a boring life, compared to what he had lived in the army, but by chance, he had found battles in the city itself. A kind of life that made him forget that he wasn't in the war anymore. A kind of life that he liked to live and Sherlock Holmes had been the one to give him that life, since the moment they met. And now everything seemed dull, grey and boring.

Was this what it was like in Sherlock's mind whenever he hadn't a mystery to solve? The thought crossed John's mind like lightning, and he shook his head trying to dismiss the thought as soon as it appear.

_What are you thinking about? You just lost your best friend and you are already thinking about finding new adventures?_ He thought. He looked at the newspaper again but the thought seemed to linger, and with it a tiny bit of hope. Could this be all a game? A game that Sherlock was trying to play? Could he not be dead but instead testing John in some weird way? Again John shook his head to dismiss the thought. _You're dreaming John._ He thought. _ You saw him on the floor bleeding from his forehead. It was him. You saw his face. You felt his pulse. You buried him… There's no way he's coming back._

But the small flame of hope had been lit. Maybe it was what his friend wanted after all… to continue what Sherlock had started. But this time to really help people, not just because of the thrill of the chase. But how could he manage to do it? He was no policeman, or detective, and certainly he wasn't Sherlock Holmes, so, the odds of him being able to help the Scotland Yard as they used to were small.

John looked at the newspaper a third time. _You see but you do not observe. _The sentence came to his mind out of nowhere. He remembered hearing Sherlock say it to Detective Inspector Lestrade once. If that was the secret to Sherlock's mystery solving skills, maybe he could become good as well, if he just knew where to look.

And this time John looked at the newspaper and saw the black printed letters. He looked for something out of the ordinary that looked like a starting point to something he didn't know, and he found none. And then, suddenly, John closed the newspaper, sat up from the armchair and left the apartment to the busy streets of London.


	3. The Investigation

Lestrade took his sunglasses off as he walked into the hospital in the morning. He looked tired, and his blood shot eyes confirmed it. He had woken up to his mobile phone ringing franticly on his bedside table.

Half an hour later he was pulling his car next to those of his coworkers of the Scotland Yard in the newest crime scene. He approached Sgt. Sally Donovan who briefed him on the situation. Lestrade looked to the blood stained concrete floor of the alleyway where someone had clearly been hurt, judging by the amount of blood on the floor. But the problem was, there was no body. Somebody must have taken it, once a person loosing that much blood couldn't have walked away or ran from the criminal.

"I found something!" a voice from the forensics team currently examining the side of the road was suddenly heard above all others and everyone turned their heads. In fact, the owner of the voice was waving an evidence bag in the air that had clearly something big inside: something that looked like a wallet.

Lestrade and Sgt. Donovan approached the man to see what he was holding.

"It's a wallet." Lestrade said.

"Probably from the victim…" said Sgt. Donovan.

Lestrade took the bag from the man's hand and, putting latex gloves on, grabbed the wallet and opened it. He quickly looked for an ID of some sort that might tell them who the owner of the wallet was, but it didn't seem to have any.

"There's something more here!" the forensics worker said again. "It's an ID. It must've fallen from the wallet…" he said, and rising to his eye level he read aloud. "It's from someone called John Hamish Watson, sir."

"What?" Lestrade said suddenly. "Let me see." And taking the ID from the man's hand looked at it.

"John Watson, sir?" Sgt. Donovan asked. "As in John Watson, Holmes' flat mate?"

"That's right..." Lestrade said. "Just let's figure out what happened here." And he walked away from the crime scene grabbing his phone and dialing Doctor John Watson's number.

And there he was, entering the glass doors of the closest hospital to the alleyway. After a quick chat with the person who had taken the call on John's phone, Lestrade found out that someone had called an ambulance in the middle of the night for the alleyway, but when they arrived there, the only person around was the unconscious one on the floor.

"What can I help you with sir?" the receptionist said when he showed his badge.

"I'm here to see John Watson. He entered tonight."

"John Watson… excuse me for just a second as I check."

Lestrade nodded and waited patiently.

A few minutes later, Lestrade was walking down the corridor of the intensive care unit, where all the rooms were closed to visitors, but the patients could still be seen through the glass walls that divided the rooms. Lestrade stopped in front of one of the rooms and looked through the glass. There he was. The person he knew so well from running around with Sherlock. The man that seemed to have put some humanity in Sherlock's head was now lying on a hospital bed.

"Ah, Detective Inspector Lestrade." A familiar voice made its way into Lestrade's ears making him turn. He didn't recognize the man standing by his side, but for some reason he recognized his voice. "By your expression I take it that you don't know who I am." The man said in a eerie voice. Lestrade shook his head in a negative sign. "Mycroft Holmes. We spoke on the phone in several occasions." He said giving him a hand to shake.

"Pleasure to meet you." Lestrade said, shaking his hand. "But what brings you here today?"

"The same as you. Doctor John Watson seems to have put himself in a bit of trouble."

"Do you know what happened?" Lestrade asked. Mycroft shook his head.

"I have people on it…" he said. "They say he is stable for now… and that he was lucky. They say a mystery man called an ambulance."

"Yes. They told me that as well…" Lestrade said. "I have my team examining the place. We don't know for sure if Doctor Watson is the victim or the criminal…"

"I would be inclined for victim…" Mycroft said.

"What makes you say that?" Lestrade asked.

"In the last months, Doctor Watson seemed to have decided to follow my late brother's footsteps in crime solving. Last time I checked he was chasing some major criminals… The sad part is that he didn't seem to realize how big they were… Let's hope this is not the end of him… And if you excuse me now, I have to go." And Mycroft Holmes left the hospital leaving a somehow confused D.I. Lestrade behind.


	4. The Break Down

_Two months earlier_

John Watson dragged himself up the stairs that were between the entrance door and the living room at 221B Baker Street.

As soon as he entered the room he sat on his favourite armchair and rested. He felt tired.

A whole month had passed since his decision to chase criminals like he had done back in the old days. The days when he still shared the flat with Sherlock… the days when he didn't have to sit alone at home… Back then he could look at the walls and feel angry at Sherlock for drawing a yellow smile in Mrs. Hudson's neat wallpaper or for shooting loosely at the wall because he was bored. Now the smiley face and the bullet holes were the only things around the flat that told him that someone other than John had lived there. At the present, the yellow face and the bullet holes were the things John loved the most about the room, and were some of the few things around that brought him happy memories – even if those memories were of times where he had been angry at someone. But that someone meant everything to him, and he was no longer there.

John looked at the yellow face and sighed as it stood there staring back at him. A whole month had passed since he decided to chase criminals as he used to do with Sherlock and John hadn't been able to find any. He looked everywhere for things out of the ordinary, he read the papers, he watched the news, he spoke to people on the streets and the only thing he had gotten in response were rants about the salaries and the economic situation. He was losing hope. Maybe he couldn't be a good observer like Sherlock was, maybe he was destined to just stay there and grow old and bitter all alone. Maybe that was what was going to happen to him after a lifetime of adventure.

John's gaze went through the glass of the windows to the outside of the building. The sky was blue, and although he couldn't hear it, he knew the streets were filled with people walking about, shopping, and trying to forget their own problems and be happy - at least just for one a day.

Then why couldn't he do the same? Why couldn't he try to forget everything and be happy? The only thing he had to do was to leave the flat and seek for employment. He was a doctor for God's sake and a hell of a good one! There had to be a place where he was accepted. The first days would be hard, but maybe with time he would finally learn to forget what happened, find someone to be with, someone he loved and maybe he could even raise a family of his own… who knew? Everything seemed possible and for a moment John was happy with the possibility.

And then, suddenly he looked to the wall again, to the yellow smiley face that was looking back at him, and it hit him harder than before. He was alone, with no friends in a city full of people. He had a sister to whom he would not speak to and some other acquaintances that didn't mean much to him. He realized now that, as he was Sherlock's only friend, Sherlock was John's only friend as well. He had had a stream of girlfriends, none of which wanted to stay with him because he cared too much about Sherlock… and now his friend was gone, and John Watson was lost. His head was full of questions still unanswered, full of memories that insisted on coming back every day, full of anger at Sherlock for having jumped off the roof when he would have helped him in every way he could, and most of all, full of anger at Mycroft for letting this all happen. After all, if it wasn't for Mycroft and his secret code, Sherlock would still be alive.

John couldn't bear it anymore. He didn't recall falling off the armchair, but he realized now that he was sat on his knees on the floor. Tears threaten to fall off his eyes, and his right hand was shaking terribly again.

He got up from the floor feeling desperate, sad and angry at everything and everyone around him. After all he hadn't done anything so wrong during his to be punished like this. Blindly he walked to his room, grabbed his gun and went back to the living room. And then, similarly to Sherlock a few years back, he aimed and fired three shots at the yellow face on the wall.


	5. Recovery

John Watson looked at the card board box in front of him. Inside it were the personal items that he carried with him in the night he had been shot: a mobile phone, his home keys and a woolen jumper. The only item missing was his wallet found and kept by the Scotland Yard as part of the ongoing investigation.

John sighed and grabbed his jumper. While thinking about what had happened he distractively took some blue wool threads that seemed to have accumulated on it, he had no idea why. Finally he folded it and put it again neatly by the side of the box.

He took the keys and while putting them on his pocket he went for the phone, but something on his mind made him stop. The phone was turned down showing clearly for everyone to see, the engraving at the back: _Harry Watson – from Clara – xxx_. John took it and stared at the engraving for a moment. No one had told his sister that he had been shot – even if he didn't get along with her, the thought of no one telling her that her brother was at the hospital hurt him a bit. Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson had been there with him, and even Mycroft seemed to have been when he was still unconscious (which was a good thing, otherwise John had probably punched him in the face), but his sister hadn't even been warned.

He looked at the engraving one more time and remembered the taxi ride where Sherlock had explained to him how he deduced that he had a brother who was a drinker and with whom John didn't get along. He couldn't help it but smile when he recalled the exasperation on Sherlock's face when he had told him that Harry was short for Harriet and that in fact Harry was his sister – not his brother.

John thought about calling Harry and grabbing the phone he looked for the number on his mobile's contact list. He stood for a moment looking at the number trying to gain some courage to press the dial button. After a while looking at it, with a harsh movement he pocketed his phone and grabbed his jumper.

Half an hour later, after signing all the hospital paperwork for his release, Doctor John Watson was leaving a cab in front of 221B Baker Street. As he watched the cab go, in a decided manner he took his phone from his pocket, dialed his sister's number and pressed the dial button.


End file.
